Contemporary Issues in Social Media Marketing

Bikramjit Rishi, Subir Bandyopadhyay

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317193982
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Commerce Général

In a short time span, social media has transformed communication, as well as the way consumers buy, live and utilize products and services. Understanding the perspectives of both consumers and marketers can help organizations to design, develop and implement better social media marketing strategies. However, academic research on social media marketing has not kept pace with the practical applications and this has led to a critical void in social media literature. This new text expertly bridges that void.

Contemporary Issues in Social Media provides the most cutting edge findings in social media marketing, through original chapters from a range of the world's leading specialists in the area.

Topics include:

• The consumer journey in a social media world

• Social media and customer relationship management (CRM)

• Social media marketing goals and objectives

• Social media and recruitment

• Microblogging strategy

And many more.

The book is ideal for students of social media marketing, social media marketing professionals, researchers and academicians who are interested in knowing more about social media marketing. The book will also become a reference resource for those organizations which want to use social media marketing for their brands.

1

CITIZEN RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT BY THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS

Rajan Gupta, Saibal Pal and Sunil K. Muttoo

Introduction

In today’s world, the Internet, data and security have become important parts of people’s lives. The Internet is a significant medium for individuals to communicate with each other, interact and even collaborate in certain instances. Recent development in the field of social media, such as the inception of multiple websites and platforms and the advent of blogs, is also a big change. This widespread connectivity of individuals to the Internet and their significant presence on social networking sites encourages governments to also adopt this medium as its connecting channel to citizens.

Government plays a crucial role in the lives of its citizens. The citizen is the customer of the government, i.e. the consumer of public goods and services. The main objective of government is to provide long-term benefits to citizens, increase their standard of living, and provide solutions to their problems. Citizens are, however, becoming dissatisfied with the usual physical process of getting information from government (through personal visits to office), since the available information is not transparent and many times, the information is not even accessible to the general public (Dudley et al. 2015). As a result, in recent years many governments have started using digital mediums especially the social media platforms to provide information to citizens on matters like taxes, schemes and services, public utility, vehicle registration, voting registration, legal assistance services and so on, thereby enhancing their capabilities with regard to Citizen Relationship Management (CRM). Governments are able to deliver services more efficiently with the advent of information and communication technology.

In the Indian government system, recent changes have been noticed in the field of the government’s social media interaction, namely the introduction of Twitter accounts for many ministries and ministers. These accounts are highly active and help in solving the problems of Indian citizens, at home and abroad. Instant help is provided in medical cases and embassies are put to work in the case of international issues. These activities help the government in building a positive reputation amongst its citizens. In this way, the help provided also leads to a satisfied citizen base (i.e. customers of the government). This in turn is all part of the activity of citizen relationship management (Rajan 2016; Srivastava 2013). In the following sub-section, CRM will be discussed in detail followed by a discussion of the relevance of this study.

CRM and social media

The term ‘citizen relationship management,’ or CRM, refers to the use of various management practices, information and communication technology, and channels that enable the public sector to provide customer services to its citizens. CRM has been understood and implemented in various ways and generally applied by government to improve citizen orientation, customer services and public services, and to improve government-citizen relationships. Apart from these objectives of CRM, understanding the needs of the citizen and providing a corresponding solution is one of the main focus areas of CRM. Governments are increasing efforts at all levels for better citizen services as they respond quickly to citizen requests and inquiries to provide general information on processes and procedures to facilitate citizens to receive government services. Information and communication technology (e.g. web portals and social media) is helping government in understanding and meeting the needs of citizens in a cost-effective manner (Latha et al. 2013; Shaikh and Khan 2014).

The advancement of social media is redefining the process of citizen relationship management worldwide. Almost all the departments of the government sector have moved forward by introducing accounts on social media to interact with citizens and provide information and solutions to citizens’ problems. This has been beneficial to government and citizens in different ways (Andrade et al. 2014; Schellong 2006). ‘Social media’ refers to the applications and websites that enable people worldwide to share content in an inexpensive way. They include social networking websites and applications like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Plus, Flicker, Pinterest and more. Social media gives users a platform to share their views on anything happening around the world. It offers a cost-effective and powerful medium to provide information to a large audience. By observing the current scenario, it can be said that social media play an important part in people’s lives worldwide (Magro 2012).

Relevance of the study

In the recent past, social media have become powerful platforms which allows users to access information from anywhere through an Internet connection. The Indian government has moved forward with this changing environment and has developed its presence on social media. CRM enables governments to attract ­citizens and create awareness about various services provided by the public sector. Use of social media by government helps them to reach a global audience in an inexpensive way. For government representatives, this study will highlight the participation and engagement of the Government of India with citizens on online media, particularly on Facebook and Twitter. In addition, CRM over social media will provide better tools to improve the government-citizen relationship in this digital age (Sinderman 2011). The study will analyse information provided by the government and citizen responses to this that would be helpful to government employees in analysing their citizen services. The current chapter will help the Indian government to realize how quickly they respond to citizen problems on social media platforms. The study will contribute to improving citizen relationship management in India. The objectives of the study are as follows:

1.To study various CRM initiatives undertaken by the Government of India using social media

2.To study the impact of social media on the improvement of CRM for the Government of India

3.To identify and analyse the positive and negative cases of CRM on various social media platforms

Review of the literature

Citizen relationship management is an important activity for governments to initiate and maintain. The government has a duty to cater to its citizens to the best of its abilities. Particularly in the case of a country like India, citizens form a key component of the whole democratic structure and hence are vital for its functioning. If the citizens are not satisfied then they can prove harmful to the welfare of the country and can even rebel against the government.

India is a developing country and hence is on the verge of enormous growth in a number of fields. India has been slowly and steadily adapting to the digital environment that is increasingly prevalent in the world today and has been making great leaps towards a completely digitized system of government. Digital India is a campaign run by the Indian government to bring all of India onto a digital platform. This offers new opportunities as well as exposes the country to the related risks. Digital India is a topic that is of interest to people and hence they want to invest in it. Researchers are interested in knowing more about it and how it can impact governance as well as citizens’ quality of life (Sharma et al. 2016; Thomas 2012).

Studies have been conducted nationally as well as internationally that confirm the importance of social media on citizen relationship management (Khasawneh et al. 2013; Bonsón et al. 2012). With the help of Facebook posts and other channels like Twitter and LinkedIn, analysis is conducted to learn about the importance of social media as a platform of interaction for government officials and departments. In some studies it has also been seen that the government is lacking in the area of social media interaction compared to its citizens (Bonsón et al. 2012). Studies also found that government portals do not perform as well when compared to average performance metrics (Shaikh and Khan 2014). There is a general need to harness the power of social media to improve interaction and management practices of the government to strengthen their relationship with the citizens.

Studies have also been conducted that show the support that social media can provide to the fulfilment of the objective of citizen relationship management. Social media has the capacity to provide marketing support to all kinds of organizations and firms, which is equally true of the government for their various policies and campaigns. Social media are an excellent platform for the government to market the policies that it introduces. The government can mainta...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• 1 Citizen relationship management by the Government of India through social media channels
• 2 Academia goes social media, MOOC, SPOC, SMOC and SSOC: The digital transformation of higher education institutions and universities
• 3 Integrating community and relationship building into universities’ social media marketing: Implications from a case study
• 4 Social media marketing for B2B: From information to decision to retention
• 5 Social media stakeholder co-creation of celebrities as human brands
• 6 Social recruitment: Investing in social currency
• 7 The struggle of the secrecy, safety and security of social media and smartphones
• 8 Creating, contributing and consuming behaviour: How rational and affective appeals in social media facilitate engagement
• 9 Social media engagement and return on engagement
• 10 The consumer engagement/return on social media engagement interface: Development of a conceptual model
• 11 An unexpected journey: The influence of social media on consumer decision-making
• 12 Network based choice formation: A review in the context of online communities
• 13 Creepy and intrusive: A consumer’s perspective of online personalized communications
• 14 Social media measurement and monitoring
• 15 Attitudes towards brands and advertisements: Qualitative and thematic analysis of social media data
• 16 Strategizing social media presence
• 17 Salient role and centrality of trust in social media marketing
• 18 Trust relationships in social networks: A typology of strategies for communication between companies and their consumers
• 19 Like-influencer framework: A study of factors influencing click of ‘Like’ option by users on Facebook
• 20 Mechanisms for incentivizing and encouraging online social interactions – an experiment analysing the role of recommendations and rewards on advertisement sharing behaviour
• 21 The rise of social media: Implications for emerging markets
• 22 Profiling youth on the basis of their motivations for social media political participation: Implications for political marketers
• 23 Privacy and information trading on social media applications
• Index